Leaderboard

With your 149 can you: Flat turn 90 degrees on short final and still land well? Flare turn at least 45 degrees and still land well? Land crosswind and in no wind? Land reliably within a 10-meter circle? Initiate a high-performance landing with double front risers and front riser turns to landing? Land on slight uphills and downhills? Land with rear risers? If the answer to all of those is "yes" then you are probably ready. If you can't do those things on your current canopy then 1) you're not getting all the performance out of it yet and 2) you should seriously consider learning them before downsizing. Many of those are survival skills that you will be too scared to try on your new canopy because it's small and you promised people you'd "be really careful."

Especially the part about BMs. I'm proud of my high quality ones and would love to show them off. Especially to her.

Eternal happiness

The silence from the BOD on this is deafening... At a minimum there should have at least been some kind of press release saying that we're looking into it, etc., ,etc. I understand the reasons for confidentiality of investigations and they are valid. We all have a right to protection from slander and due process. But in a high profile incident involving a board member there is also a fiduciary duty to the general membership that must be addressed. As an organization, we do not have adequate transparency on this. Someone needs to be a leader here.

Nah, of course not. The BOD doesn't discuss CG matters in public. And that's (mostly) a good thing. I'd love to see that change WRT sitting BOD members. Their cases should be made public IMO. My question was more for the OP. And we all have to keep in mind that regardless of how many facts offered, even the OP doesn't know what actually happened in committee. More likely a good dose of speculation about the CG's motivations and reasoning. But your question is a valid one.

A drunk man who smelled like a beer sat down on a subway seat next to a priest. The man’s tie was stained, his face was smeared with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began to read. After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, “Say Father, what causes arthritis?” The priest replies, “My son, it’s caused by loose living, being with cheap wicked women, too much alcohol and contempt for your fellow man.” “Well I’ll be darned,” the drunk muttered, returning to his newspaper. The priest thinking about what he said, nudged the drunk and apologized. “I’m sorry to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?” “I don’t have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope does.”

May I make a radical suggestion? Tie the part of the Second Amendment about "right to bear arms" to the part about "well regulated militia" and require every new gun owner to enroll in a gov't recognized gun club and complete basic fire arms training at that gun club. To meet the "militia" requirement, insist that each gun club include a few active duty or retired military or police officers. Most gun clubs already contain large numbers of retired military. That is similar to the current standard in most other countries (e.g. Canada).

Somehow school dress codes and uniforms don't interfere with learning elsewhere. It's a guess but I'd guess where all kids are dressed the same at school there is less social bullying.

Four CEOs of beer companies are having a meeting and they decide to get a drink. The CEO of Budweiser orders a Bud light. The CEO of Miller orders a Miller Lite. The CEO of Coors orders a Coors Light. The CEO of Guinness orders a Coke. The three CEOS then ask him, why aren’t you ordering a Guinness? He replies: “If you guys aren’t drinking beer than neither will I.”

I'd say it's the easy availability and "tool of all uses" approach to guns that's the problem. The vast majority of people who own them don't own them to put food on the table (an extremely valid reason), or for any other reason that isn't addressed by other means. They're the option of first resort, rather than the option of last resort, for too many situations that people either find themselves in, or imagine themselves in. Making them less available would remove some of that, because you'd have to actually do something to get them. Kind of like not making your house burglar-proof (not possible), just less attractive than other houses. Wendy P.

You are MORE at risk in suburbia. The most dangerous animal you will ever face is another human. 8 people in the US every year are killed by animal attacks and 47,000 are injured. 21,000 people are murdered in the US every year by other people, and 921,000 are victims of aggravated and sexual assaults. It is worth noting that 80% of those murders are from gun violence. Since you live in a more rural area without neighbors, you face even less risk of a threat you can stop with a gun. And I grew up in a house in the woods where cell phones never worked at all (since no one had any.) We even had a fair number of wild, feral and escaped farm animals wander around our house. Two became pets. A few were problems. A gun would have helped with none of them. Absolutely. And in the example above, I gave an example of someone who felt they needed to skydive and carry their rig on airplanes to be safe. IMO they are incorrect. The underlying sentiment is that they WANTED to carry their rig on, which is fine. (Provided the pilot is OK with it of course.) 24,000 americans kill themselves every year with a gun. 500 of those are people who accidentally kill themselves. Compare that number of deaths caused by owning a gun - 24,000 - to the number caused by wild animal attacks - 8 - that MIGHT have been prevented by a gun. If you want guns for whatever reason - it makes you feel safer, you like guns, you think owning guns is an important political statement, you like shooting - then by all means do it. Just don't fool yourself that they are making you safer, or that you need them. They are a risk to your life, a risk you decided to take. I just said it should not be.